Let’s be honest with ourselves here…..these folks are mad as hell, but Boudreau is right, they only protest because a Hab was the victim. Had it been a Bruins player those folks would not be out there. Some might mutter shame, shame under their breath, but they would not make an audible sound over it. That reflects bad no matter how you slice it. They want revenge not change.

“Don’t come. If you don’t like it, don’t come to the games! Players realize they could get hurt, they don’t want to do it, but unless you’ve played and seen what goes on at the speed of the game, you’re not going to be able to argue with it.

“And listen, I don’t want to get into any controversy, but if that was Hal Gill that hit David Krejci I don’t think there would be a protest tonight.”

It is more of the same HardLiner stance. Our game is physical, people get hurt, etc.. etc..

That is what pisses me off about his statement. Like someone else said, once he loses Ovechkin (i don’t want this to happen) for a season from a concussion, he will play a complete different song. But he loves to protest over the Stamkos/Downie diving. So diving bad, hits to head good. Got it Bruce!

This type of thinking is outdated…”we’ve always done it like that, why change?”.

Incidental contact of two guys fighting for posession or position happens and sometimes bad things result.

Chara’s hit, Crosby’s (2nd) head shot, Booth, Savard etc were not incidental, they were targeted hits and should be punishable to the Max (pun intended) to serve as notice that this type of play will no longer be acceptable. Until they deal with this seriously, it will continue.

I told a guy in another column that ‘the hit’ would be the point where the fans, players, league and others say ‘enough is enough’ and he scoffed at me saying it was the Crosby hit…..I beg to differ.

Goalie pads were the same they got bigger to afford protection, which was great, but then they kept on getting bigger, not for protection, but to aid in stopping pucks. They have made changes to help remedy this, why not with this issue.

But either/or, I don’t think it would work. I mentioned this a few days ago: you hit that thing the way the Pac-Man woulda hit it, and your neck gets lodged and twisted up the slant while your body keeps going underneath.

I think there are as many conditions for injury, only of a different kind. In fact, I think human physiology vs kinetics IS rocket-science.

I suggested triple the padding. Or quadruple. Quintuple…sextuple…you get the idea.

Fighting HAS to be addressed in all of this. If you can toss a guy out of the game for delivering a headshot to a guy by ramming his head into a stanchion, then why is delivering a headshot to a guy by ramming your fist into his face punishable by a 5-minute rest in the penalty box?

Fighting should be a 5-minute major, misconduct, and automatic ejection from the game. And to prevent late-game goonery, fighting in the 3rd period/overtime would get you an additional 1-game suspension.

hey, im not reponsible for following every hit in the nhl. if i were a fan of his team, i would be just as upset. as it stands i follow the habs, thus when a foul occurs i get upset, in this case its on a much larger scale.

Every time I see footage of Lucic getting away with another cross check to the head or sucker punch I wonder how long this guy will be allowed to get away with it. I’m just waiting for the day someone does some damage to this guy and I hope the league turns a blind eye like they have for Lucic. Somehow though, I doubt that will be the case.

In other words, the LARGEST portion of player concussions are from league-sanctioned, a-okay, family-friendly, Gary-Bettman approved hits. Nice! I hope MY son gets to play in your NHL Gary! You’re doing a great job looking after this problem! What a peach you are! Maybe someone should run YOUR HEAD into the nice glass and see what that’s like. You want to make more money for the league? I’d pay 20 bucks to see just that, and I bet millions of others would too.

The rules are not murky, it is the people applying them that are the trouble here.

Every referee calls it different, from game to game, and anymore from shift to shift. You add in the extra official on the ice and it makes it even more difficult for the players to understand what will be called and what won’t.

Back in the day this was not a big issue. The reffs missed calls, they are human. But the players could look at who was calling the game, knew what he was likely to call, and knew that he would consistantly call the game that way. They knew before the game even started what they could get away with, and what they couldn’t. This was no where near the issue back then.

The worst part of the whole thing is the consistancy of supplimental discipline from the league’s head office….there is none.

As much as the hit on Pacioretty was an awful incident it is proving to be the catalyst to restore sanity to the NHL version of the game of hockey. It’s funny how many people say they laugh at us Habs fans. It’s more jealousy. They all say where were you when Crosby got hit, or Savard, or Bergeron, etc. Well, we’re here now and we’re not going away. The incident was the last straw for Habs fans. If there wasn’t all the recent spate of concussions I doubt we’d be as up in arms as we are, but with the body of evidence before the Chara hit on Pacioretty, the camel’s brack is now broken.

Players like Matt Cooke and Mike Richards, Milan Lucic most recently for his cross-check on Dominic Moore, have to be held accountable for their actions.

You guys know that Pacioretty isn’t the first guy to get hit into the stanchion right? How come it’s been okay for every other guy whos been knocked into it but when it happends to our guy the world is coming to an end?

A Bruins fan was using that “what about Matt Cooke?” argument when discussing the Pacioretty injury, but had no reply when I told them Cooke and players like him shouldn’t even be in the NHL. Plus, the Steckel hit on Crosby at the winter classic was argued by many people to be an intentional targeting of the head.

When they actually have a dialogue with Habs fans about the issues, they’re surprised to find out we’re rational people. It’s a case of certain media personalities with ties to Boston (Milbury, Cherry, NESN) who paint us as whiners.

The only thing one could argue about your statement is that Chara stalked him around the ice. Slashing him, charging into scrums and trying to pummel him, for 5 periods of hockey leading up to the head smash. It’s hard to prove, but it totally obvious.

Maybe he didn’t break a rule, but he definitely knew what he was doing and tried to hurt another player purposely….unfortunately it’s a grey area and the NHL allows it. It’s not different than the Wiz trying to level Grabovski game after game I guess….

Not to sound like a PC douche, but I think a look at the news headlines the last few days shows a contrast between an incident that pisses off Montreal hockey fans, and a disaster that should get a little more attention and put things in perspective. We lost a great young player for the season, his future is in doubt, but really, is that a life changing event?

There are multiple reasons why the hit on Pacioretty is a bigger deal:

1. This is the most important part of it for me, Chara committed an illegal hit. He interfered with Pacioretty and it’s arguable that he also aimed for his head. If you commit an illegal hit, the offending player should be fully responsible for any damage(s) he caused.

2. There was history between the two players, and there is evidence to show that Chara meant to shove Pacioretty headfirst into the stanchion.

3. Pacioretty’s neck was fractured. That’s a very serious injury. And when an initial hit isn’t clean, the resulting injury is completely relevant.

Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjb9Xy2UnWc and tell me Johnson didn’t know what he was going… He wasn’t suspended for that play…Therefore precedent holds that Chara shouldn’t be either…It sucks I know